Dark Souls
by VVeetlesMSten
Summary: Please read my story. It's all in my head there to come out if only ... there are those to encourage me. Thank you!
1. Chapter 1

An inglorious thud of impact crashes through the monotones of the dripping and filth and silence of the asylum. The warriors' eyes come suddenly alive. They move up from the dirt floor of his dank holding cell to the twisted lump just now thrown there, and then up and back again to the hole in the ceiling high above him from whence it had come hurtling down through. Someone peers back from above. A man in full plate armor. The helm looks familiar. Perhaps Astoran officer stock but these ponderances pass with an only dulled interest … for the warrior is undead. The figure above turns to profile as if something far off calls … and then departs.

The warrior brings himself up slowly to stand. The now tattered leather suit, leggings and boots he arrived in is all he has. Perhaps leftover from some past station of discarded importance. He moves over to the fallen form in his cell. It is man shaped, Hollowed to a husk and … reeking a rotted stench of diseased humanity… typical remains of an accursed but this appears to have been a corpse for some time. Round its neck is a twined jailers key. The warrior moves to take it but as he reaches out his decayed, cold hands distract him for a brief moment. They are... of similar look to the corpse … yes of course they are yet it grips him nonetheless. He refocuses … the key is profoundly worn and heavy in hand. Magic permeates from it though but … could it? He pulls it off the corpse, moves to the gate of his cell and places it in the lock … a twist a pull … the deadlock clicks … the gate door creaks open… He pushes the gate open further.


	2. Chapter 2

The warrior steps out of his cell and into the corridor. The Undead Asylum. Or Sanctuary of Hollows as say the more mortal of the Clerics. The hallway is dark, horsewidth and unadorned with heavy brick walls deeply grimed there and on the stoned floor. A lofty dropped coffin lid ceiling oppresses. His senses awaken to the want of freedom from it. They amplify the intensity of the place. He is amazed to be out of the cell. Life. Everything now alive, he is centered on … escaping this.

Sounds. Movements from places but the where deceives. He sees … almost nothing though but through the dark the dim torch light flicks at the damp, pulsating forgotten walls. Sights and sounds show him the way. He follows them and hopes. His Undead mind goes further only with strained effort. Humanity and human thoughts for him, an undead, they are not static. He is a warrior. A man, yes, but his humanity rests on a spectral span of death and life and arriving and appearing but there is no question to not take this chance. That's all that matters so there are no more questions. He goes on...

The asylum corridor, still dark, is lit now in places by some scattered torchlight and a few high, thin air shafts. Hollowmen linger in places spaced from one another as the Hollowed are wont to do. More akin to swamp mosses than men they are at times. The Hollowed: their blanked stares revealing their absences of mortality and inherent inhumanity yes, yet also hold a mirror to his own. Their movements stimulate though something human in him as well: fear. A warning of what approcheth. Curses. The afflictions. Symptoms of their progress. And pain. He moves past them with more hopes for an exit or weapon or … chance.

An ironcast sewer ladder leads up to a more alighted, drier area with wider hallway. The warrior follows it to its end: an open courtyard surrounded by a banded ceiling and balcony. Here there is a small piece of open sky showing and, in the middle of the courtyard, a modestly kindled Bonfire of the Undead. It burns a soft flame. The warrior runs to it. To the undead it is life. It is food and drink and sleep. It is everything one needs. Though the embers of this small bonfire run dim it is more flame than enough for the warrior. It has been a very long time. He rests at the bonfire. Its' coiled metal poker holds the flame steady. Its' roots deep through the ground but also time. It burns only half naturally up from its base, a mix of dust, ash and bone. But it is not natural and more than magic. This little fire is a link to the First Flame… The warrior feels the familiar warmth gather on his back left shoulder. It courses through his neck to his head and chest. Yes, he wears the The Darksign there in common with the hollows. It grows there. Never receding. It is his curse.

… sounds of battle echo in the distance somewhere not so far from him. He returns to the moment, rises away from the bonfire and gathers himself. Steels clashing, desperate voices and impact echo into the elements from … somewhere. There is some distance between him and the cacophony. Perhaps from above him. Perhaps the asylums' upper ramparts. Or are these echo. The Undead Asylum is an island to itself on peaked greyed rock cliff crags high above levels of the lived. The warrior knows this but what else for the escape? What else?

He approaches an oversize heavy double doorway with a high, opulent curved overlay which appears to be the entrance to something for which the open courtyard perhaps once served as atrium. He pushes them open. A medium sized worship hall comes into his view which once must have been of a grand and ornate type though, like the rest of the asylum, now, it is only ruins. This place perhaps was once in service of the Church. Did gods once walk in this dungeon? Did They call it home once? Now, open to the elements from above, winged vermin build there nests in the joists above and scatterings of thick broken columns infest the ground like fallen branches in woodedplace. As he approaches the very center of the nave of the hall he notices an unusual quietness ... as if a hush had befell this place. He cannot remember when … The quiet and openness presses into the warriors instinctive state of ready… At his feet there's something scrawled into the ground. Written in orange soapstone it reads … "demon" ...


	3. Chapter 3

Quakes of a massive impact from somewhere in the room bring gusting dust everywhere. It pounds into the face of the warrior forcing struggle upon him to gain tread and steady his mind. He turns to find the source of the dizzying impact … it is as was warned: demon. Through the dust, a pear-shaped, molusc-like giant with the face of a deep water carnivore flaps its shrunken, decrepit, drakelike wings and lumberishly turns towards him. It holds … some large two-handed weapon. Its predator eyes find him. He runs … there's a door! He turns with a skid quickly toward it in full sprint as the beast swings its great weapon crashing it into columns, walls and the ground. Brick explodes filling the room with rubble and ruinous structural carnage. The warrior dives through the door just as again the hammer crashes down bringing rubble upon and over the doorway and collapsing it in upon itself.

Darkness. The warrior lay on the damp floor, his whole body in pain from the dive. The shallow corridor is seemingly protected now from the demon by the rubble. It's pitch dark and quiet. He keeps still for a moment feeling and assessing his pain and staring back into the darkness. The leather saved his skin from much injury but the impact has rattled his bones. His shoulder throbs. His left thigh pulses. The demons' paces still threaten. He must move.

Slowly the warrior lifts himself off the ground and as noiselessly as is maneuverable he allows the pebbles to slip from his chest piece and onto the floor. Expecting the beast to tear through the foundations of the walls, he waits and stares into the dark, quieting even his breath. These demons patrol the asylum he knows. Although he'd never seen one he had felt their steps and heard their haunting howls for whatever time his undead memory could recall in this place. It must have dropped from above him. The demon. Fell from the sky. Jumped through a hole in the roof of the worship hall. There is no other way it would have been able to enter into a room with doors of that size. He must ready himself now for not just the rabid Undead guards, but also for these giant demon spawns of the Abyss. It is said they lurk now in many places. Not just guarding the asylum. He'd seen one before in the forest. A goat headed blemish with arms the size of most men. They come from The Dark it is said. Their souls fused in the Abyss from the forsaken. The infinitum dead and their fragments as putty for their spines and flesh. Their whole demon being constructed to destroy with no other will. What horrors hunt him now?

… but nothing comes presently. No fells of giant hammer or … whatever weapon of Dark the demon wielded. No howls from the wretched fanged hole. Only the usual sounds of the Asylum and the demons intermittent pacings. The warrior carefully exhales and backs away. Something then comes to him as his mind replays the memory of the demon. Around the neck of the beast … he saw a key.

The dark, thin passageway gradually opens up into wider corridor lined on both sides with cramped holding cells and a dilapidated, crumbling rooftop above again revealing gray skies teased out in piecemeal. The warrior quickly explores each cell as he makes his way along the corridor. Checking … hoping. Then … in a cell to his left a manshaped figure lies facedown and motionless. Wearing the tattered garb of a hollow soldier it appears slain. On the ground next to it, the warrior finds a shortsword and shield. He immediately picks up the sword and dusts it off. His wishes granted with cherish. Though of nondescript quality the warriors' undead eyes brighten. The shield is very used and misshapen but of great value nonetheless. With these he can fight. He exits the small cell back to the corridor and follows till it breaks left and gives way to a gently rising stairwell leading up to a higher level of the asylum.

Emerging from the staircase he notices a broken portion of brick wall to his right serving as window into a small room. A heavily armored knight reclines there in amongst a pile of rubble. The space is a small enclosed room enveloped in a beam of light careening from a break in the ceiling high above. The warrior recognizes this knight immediately. It is the one he had seen looking down on him when the corpse with the twined key had fallen into his cell. Had this knight given it to him purposely? He appears … very badly injured. He is motionless and his armor is damaged and blackened in places. There appears no natural door to this small room but round the right flank corner he finds an opening to the cell through another larger break in the thick wall.

The warrior climbs in through the opening. The knight lifts his head slightly. "Oh, you ... You're no Hollow," he says. "The key … it worked eh? Ha! ... Yes, thank goodness you're here ... I need your help as my final moments have come... And regrettably, I have failed in my mission... But perhaps you can keep the torch lit... There is an old saying in my family..." the knights' voice to rises to a cadent respect "Thou who art Undead, art chosen... In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of Ancient Lords... When thou ringeth the Bell of Awakening, the fate of the Undead thou shalt know..." He pauses for a moment. "Well, now you know... Will you? There's no time. Just go… Leave this place… Go to Lordran… Find the bonfires. Kindle them as you like. It can be done. Gain strength in them. There is some comfort there however fleeting … in the bonfires as you know. There is some beauty there… Yes, you understand of course. Hopefully your mind is well enough to will for more… but we shall see." The knight pauses again as if gazing lovingly upon the warrior through his helm. Perhaps a fond memory as his one last thought. "But there's nothing for you here or otherwise… Nothing… What is there here?" He turns his head away from the warrior now and pauses again.

"Nothing to say eh? Has the curse turned your mind too far inward? The bonfire visions brought you so far into the afterlife that you won't cometh back? Sir come back!" he raises his voice to sudden desperation and turns his head back to the warrior. "No … I can see in your eyes there's more to you. Bah, you're right sir there is little to say anymore anyway! ... Is there? … What can undead have to converse about? Ha! No matter. Now go. And I can die with hope in my heart... Now I must bid farewell... I would hate to harm you after death... So, go now... And thank you..."

The knight dies his final undead death. The warrior knows the process. It will be some time before the affliction brings him to his new hollowed, unpredictable state. When it does though, this knight could be a formidable hollow if really of Astoran officer stock.

The land of Ancient Lords... The Bell of Awakening … Fate of the Undead. Is it all the ramblings of a forlorn, undead madman a halfshade from hollowed? The warrior cares not. Haste calls…


	4. Chapter 4

Up a steep, narrow staircase now. Slowly… quietly. At the top … beaming light flows through the bars of a small gate at the end of a narrow passageway. So bright and of another species than torchlight. There, Sun. There it is but not what mortals see. That which it is for undead eyes. Blinding. Beaming through this gate and through clouds but still … Sun … Again, the twined key works and the deadlock clicks and the gate opens. But this he cannot do quietly. The jammed door creaks and slides and scrapes over the ground. He pushes it open and enters the quarter sized balcony. It is on the exterior of the asylum. Guards should be here. It overlooks the mountain range and clouds and the sky.

With no warning, an arrow clips off his shoulder plating and rattles off the wall and onto the cut rock floor. He falls back stunned and awkwardly sprawls into a corner. He raises the shield in front of his full body thinking, what fired this? From where? He peaks round the shield then pulls his head back quickly. He sees nothing from this corner. Stillness and quiet again wash over the balcony. All he sees … is the mountains … the clouds. The … view. Still with shield raised, he edges toward the grey sky as he comes forth onto the open balcony. Glancing side to side, he walks to the edge. The sky looms as he brings himself as close to it as he can then looks down over the decorative battlements of the asylum exterior. Clouds, crags, sky and death stare back. The smell of damp and cold. Outside. Freedom. For a moment he drinks it down but then a rattling of armor and footfall on the stone floor rakes his thoughts back into the moment. Back to the arrow. The enemies approach surely now. His mind struggles to wrestle back the urgency of the moment from the mesmerizing sky. He must continue.

Up a few steps to the left from the edge of the exterior balcony is another railing on the opposite side in towards the interior of the asylum. The warrior notices that it, in fact, overhangs the worship room where he'd encountered the demon before. He peers over it. The demon is there now, right below him. Just standing there. Head exposed. Enemies approach now. He sees them: two hollowed soldiers, an archer and one carrying a spear and shield, approaching from the far reaches of the balcony. He must decide … the demon or the guards. He can't defeat either of them, he knows. Not with this weapon. And that key. But the demon has the key. It's time now to decide and make his move. This is his only chance. He steadies himself, grips the sword with both hands, and … suddenly he feels an impact on his forehead. He reaches up and feels for it. There's something there … at his forehead. An arrow … For a moment, confusion… a few drops of blood on his cheek and chin and chest … yes it is an arrow in his forehead. He moves to grab it then… death


	5. Chapter 5

...

...

The victorious youth are cheering. They run to each other and embrace and yell and reach for the sky. The boy looks on. He cannot look away. His heart aches. His gut is mashed and raw as if to be punched. They are the victorious. He is the defeated. They are better. The winners. The forever happy. Why them and not him? He cannot look away. They are so ugly. Real bad kids. They took it unfairly. They don't deserve it. His pain is consuming. He sees his mothers sad face …

...

...

Warmth … a faint brushstroke of light flame through closed eyes. There's dryness and light and the warmth. The undead feel no warmth but for the painful pulse of the darksign they say. Their senses lost to the disease but for the warrior, to him, this has always felt untrue. Maybe for what they mean to them, but it is warmth to him. There it is and he will call it that. There's no mistaking it: warmth.

His eyes open to his newly birthed hollowed hands fresh from the flame of the bonfire. Parched and dry and aged but … new again. There's crackling of a fire. He looks up from those hands and stares for a while transfixed. The mechanical magic in the sound of it presents gifts from the gods. Yes there's magic there. The warrior accepts this as just another elemental truth akin to the wind blowing and sky above and the roots of archtrees that go down, down through the earth to the deep. It's just there, the magic. He's comfortable but …

Where am I? … I died. The memory of the arrow returns. He touches his forehead. The pain of the death refelt there. The shame. The pain of becoming nothing. Of being cleansed from a space. The last thought of a blight to be twisted into nothing. Forgotten. He returns from the pain to present. His hands. They are of the same cold, decayed flesh of the Undead as before yet free of all injury. His whole body the same. The injuries gone, the undead body returned to the ground, only his soul stripped of something. Some piece of something.

He looks away finally from the flame. He is sitting facing the undead bonfire he discovered in the atriumlike area outside the demons worship room. The will to be free surfaces again past the warmth of the bonfire and draws him from it. He gets up. I know where to go, he realizes… Something gained from death. This is the true weapon of The Curse. To the Undead 'I died' is only a hearkening. It rings in their ears and calls to their souls. Mortals will never comprehend. It's cloaked in the curse, sheathed in part of the disease, a link between the first flame and fire and the bonfire and undead and time. I died. That is undead death. From undead to death to bonfire to undead again … and so on it goes until … a hollowed insanity and then gone. For some it happens quicker than others they say.

The mysteries of this accursed life or affliction or evolution is not clearly known especially for one with the appetites and wanderings of a warrior. The sorcerers know much but are consumed by using the undead as view-pieces into the afterlife. Oh how they desire this insight. They bother little with the mystery of the undead lifecycle and the bonfires. The clerics know everything or claim it but cannot explain and so even the warrior can see that knowing everything can become nothing if not gifted also with the wisdom to make it plain. And so the clerics remain a tricky folk. But even the will for him to understand his curse is impaired. By his undead mind. By the flame. And by his warrior eyes that even when mortal did not much examine the stars. He was of the earth then and took more to the knowledge of weapons and battle and triumph and mission and purpose. Scrolls and learnings were for others, not him. But also perhaps too his mind has been numbed and twisted by the torture of the Asylum. For even the undead it is unnatural. Regardless it is a struggle for any and all undead to will to any action let alone a depthfull understanding of curses and afflictions. But something tells the warrior to go on. He seems to have the will for that. He must stay the sharp end of the blade. He must …

The layout of the asylum now known, the warrior follows a direct route past the demons hall and up to the 2nd level to the gate leading to the balcony. From the shadows of the low doorway of the hallway he sees the hollowed archer staring blankly towards the northern end of the balcony. Clutching the hilt of his sword with both hands, the warrior readies himself for combat. He advances towards his target first slowly and then, charging. The guard turns abruptly in time only to see the blade of the shortsword flash downward through his chest once and then up and thrust clean through his abdomen.

His enemy felled, the warrior now surveys his situation from every side. The other hollow guard is approaching now carefully from the far side of the balcony, shield up spear raised, clad in a peaked helm and some tattered sheet mail. But the elevated short balcony overhanging the demons courtyard is just steps away now. Quickly, the warrior decides not to engage the approaching enemy. He knows what he must do and there's no reason to wait. The demon below has not moved. The warrior checks once more for snipers and then lets himself fall silently toward the pulpy, giant head of the demon. With all force focused through his forearms and down into the tip of his weapon, he uses the momentum from his fall to plunge the blade deep into the head of the monster.

The demon thrashes and kicks and flails till the sword jars loose. The warrior falls, rolling down the back of the beast and crashing to the ground stunned but still clutching the sword. He looks up to see the demon swaying and thrashing his massive hammer from side to side but still standing and trying to recover. The warrior rushes the demon from behind and plunges his sword into its back and stabs and then cuts twice … three times …. Blood spews everywhere now and forth as the demon again throws him off with a shove of the handle of his weapon and then the massive hammer again begins to pound the ground. Strike after strike falls, the world shakes and the foundations of the hall rattle and crack and turn up dust. The warrior scrambles to survive, jumping away as the hammer falls and falls again. All he can see now is rock and dust everywhere, smashed columns crumbling and glimpses of the hammer as the demon pounds it furiously in search of his prey. Dust and thunderous crashings reverberate and then comes an enormous splash… and more dust… and it's stopped. The warrior stands, still readied, shielded behind a fallen pillar and a pile of rubble, sword raised, peering through the dust… it settles … He waits readied ... The dust clears enough to see it. The enormous demon face down… slain. And the key


	6. Chapter 6

Waves of energy and life surge into the warriors undead veins. Euphoric power from the impossible victory. Strength of ridding the lands of this atrocity and taking its soul. Freedom feels so close for him now. He is alive. Lost hopes return from forever ago though his warriors mind tells him there's no time now for hoping. Voices and footfall echo in the worship room. There's torchlight and activity in the upper levels now. Shocked hollow faces peer down at the immense fallen demon… and the warrior.

He runs over to the slain demon. The key. There it is. He slashes through the string, grabs the key and runs to the door. The giant key slides into the lock with a magnetic magic. He pushes the massive door and it opens and instantly the walls that have held him for so long are gone. Sky and land and the mountains stand now in front of him. On his way he turns back and notices the bonfire in the distance inside the asylum. It beckons him back to it somehow. Life and warmth are in the flame. But freedom calls out and instead he runs. Hunched humanoid forms in all stages and manner of the curse linger around the outside of the asylum. They look up from out of their hollowed stupors as he runs past them. Some of them rise and follow. Yes, there are no walls around him now. He runs still. More hollows, staggering after him armed with assorted weapons, come from inside the asylum. Their garbled moans seem farther away now outside. There's many of them now and … he runs.

But there's nowhere to go. Walls of stone have become walls of sky. Cliff falls sheer on all sides around the pathway leading out from the asylum towards … towards nothing. The cliffs' brink is all. There's nowhere to go. He's there at the brink. His hollow heart falls as he looks down and then turns and looks everywhere searching for something. Some way to escape this. But there is none. He goes again through each option frantically. He's dead now again or worse. Back to the cell is worse. Back to … but just as he was given a chance it will end like this for nothing? … It was all for nothing. The hollows are now close. There's too many. He moves right to the very tip of the brink of the cliff and turns back again steadying himself. He'll die fighting at least… the bonfire twinkles in the distance, still flickering in the asylum. Perhaps the bonfire will mercifully consume what's left of his mind for good this time. One last full slow breath and then … suddenly, something crashes into him and then blackness …

His senses return and he's in the clutches of something and there's rushing wind and he's falling... No … he's soaring. Flying. A pain wells up through his entire body. It centers in his brain. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and screams for more than just the pain. To be at the end at last and almost gone. Though his undead eyes see no flashes of lives past. They cannot weep for souls not remembered. They are undead eyes. There is no sentiment for his mortal self … not now. An image of the bonfire comes to him. It centers his mind … He's not falling. He's not falling, he's soaring… He opens his eyes and looks around. He's in the clutches of a giant, black bird. They fly together. Then its wings go steady. It appears to be circling an area. A clearing of some sort and there are toppled structures there. They descend.


	7. Chapter 7

The winged giant soars between bookended shear cliff faces and then cuts hard and steeply down towards the clearing. The warriors' head spins as he's thrown up and back again and shook mightily as the birds' emphatic deceleration brings them just above the ground where he's there deposited. Landing hard, he jumps to his feet and looks on as the creature ascends back up and circles again. It is, by the gods, a giant crow, he sees now. He watches it … soaring … its wings majestically, silently cutting through the sky high high up and then, dark eyes gleaming, it shoots downward and then behind a ruin and out of sight. Never having seen its equal, the warrior wonders, surely this must be a sacred animal. He stares to where it once flew for awhile stunned, exhausted and amazed. A dream for gods …

The sky here is close to half-part covered by a surrounding and overlapping series of sheer cliff faces and mountainous ranges. The warrior stands in a small market-sized clearing, encircled by congruous arched ruins, mid way up an endless gaping bowl of cliff. Man-made structures can be seen built into crags along the mountains higher up. The ruins that encircle him are of various sizes and in all manner of decay with grasses and bush and tree roots immersed and intertwined in between and through and within them. The grounds and walls and foundations, now stripped of their trappings and dwellings, run into and merge with each other while gently sloped stairs and archways bridge into and out of what was, perhaps once, the interior of the structure.

An undead bonfire rests composedly in the center of the circle not far from one of a few scattered, out of place, gnarled old trees. It burns with a marked brightness. An attentive firekeeper must care to this bonfire. Though the warrior sees no one appearing as such, he does though, see that he is not alone … a man sits a few paces back from the bonfire on some stairs, leaning forward with his arms resting on his knees. The man smirks and gives a nod but the warrior is too exhausted to care or acknowledge. None of this matters for now … such warmth emits from this bonfire … He goes to it and rests. Is this kindling working its wonders?

As he peers into the nourishing heart of this powerful bonfire, the warrior senses an unusual strength in it. It reminds him of the stories of kindling he knows he's heard in his undead past. Kindling: the art and rituals thereof through which mortals may enhance themselves by engaging bonfires spiritually. Invented by the clerics, they say, it is achieved by sowing a burgeoning bonfire flame through rite offerings and sacrifices of fluid humanity and soul. Those of intelligence believe there are more secrets. The sorcerers study it for links to the gods and powerful magic. The priests invented it, yes, and talk of cures though, in secret, seek only power … or so say others. Can it really slow the pace of curses? Reverse and soften symptoms of hollowing with offerings of humanity to the flame? Offer long life? Augment the physical prowesses of the undead? Yes perhaps, ponders the warrior, kindling has enhanced this bonfire.

The bonfire glows a songly burn ...this place … it could be anywhere but, yes, he feels the magic of it. There's a certain hum here. An alluring vibration there's no mistaking it. Background ruin becomes peaceful here at the bonfire. He retraces his steps mentally. His story: it is too unbelievable to be true. The Asylum. The words of the Astoran. The battle with the demon. The surge of energized humanity from his victory. The crow. He sees it all in his mind and watches it again as if floating over it from above. How did this happen? It all seems so … uncanny. By the gods, he mutters aloud … but perhaps you are strong? He wonders … wanting more.

Free from the cage of the asylum, the warrior finds himself now set in another. The curse is his cage now and, albeit a larger one, escape now is very different and maddeningly shrouded. There is no life and no peace in any of this … it is what no mortal would call existence. But the warriors' undead mind perhaps weathers it better … it slips back to the legends… Something about these utterings calls out to him. The Fate of the Undead. Some said it was meaningless. Legends. Tales. Stories. That's all. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps … something. But what else is there for a hope? His mind is trained on the words: Bell of Awakening. Land of Ancient Lords. Oh Darksign, they repeat over and over in his undead mind. And yes, he needs hope he needs it as … what else is there for finding hope? Nothing. Only the place. The allure of Lordran. He'll find the bell. There's power for him here. He can feel it.

Besides desire for strength and the allure of this place the only discernible feeling he can identify is a wanting for a return to his dreams. Dreams of times remembered of when he took for granted his humanity. That he can't remember his name does not pain or even occur to the warrior. It is but the images of his humanity that call to him. Like that from his recent spawn at the bonfire in the asylum after the arrow … his boyish self and mother ... intense feelings of desire for the win … to be the winner … to be great … for glory … But only in the dreams can he ever feel these human things … And the only pursuance of this? A search for humanity. He can feel it exists here somewhere … in Lordran. The dreams. Again, the legends. Fate of the Undead. The Curse. Deep in his past he's heard these tales of course but also from dreams though, for an undead, the difference is confused and, besides, it matters not whether they are dreams or reality as each now resides only as memory taking shape from pieces of souls and humanity. The more the better as that of others and his own become melded together and there are kept in his undead shelling. Could he save himself from the undead curse? Could he end the curse for all? Perhaps not. But it's all he has.

Now rested, he looks away from the bonfire. There's a grey cover of cloud over this place, no wind, and overall, pallor dreariness oppresses. The warrior gets up and walks directly over to the man. He wears light chainmail dressings, no helm and shows very little if any evidence of the curse. It dons on the warrior that there seems to have been a very long time since he's been in the presence of such an unhollowed face. Even with the undead impairments in his ability to judge spaces between things it is ... interesting. And he can't help but stare.


	8. Chapter 8

"Stare away my undead friend. Stare away. Ah that undead fetish…" he laughs, "silently staring at those of mortal blood. And all things for that matter… stare away ... how endearing it is. Disgustingly so. How does infinity look by way? Oh those wizards and their faraway dreams …" The man smiles a knowing smile again at the warrior, then continues talking almost as if only to himself: "Well, what do we have here? Another from the asylum eh? Well, allow me to grant welcomings to this the land of Ancient Lords. Yes, my friend, you are in Lordran." He stares back seemingly to examine the warrior and wait on him for words bemusedly but ... for the undead words come uneasily. "Have you heard the legends then? Fate of the Undead?" The man pauses. "No?" More silence ...

"Is it real?" says the warrior.

"Is what real?"

"The legends."

"Is it real?" the man laughs, "You want to solve the mystery then do you? You? Really? Well, you're not the first and you'd have done better to stay in the Undead Asylum … but too late now isn't it."

"Bell of awakening. What is this bell? What is this … awakening."

"Ha! you speak so well for one of such a terribly undead face. That brain still churning on its forwheel eh? Ha heh ha… Well, there are actually two Bells of Awakening and yes, they are real I do know this much. And as much that they are, I know where they are. One's up above, in the Undead Church. The other is far, far below, in the ruins at the base of Blighttown. Ring them both, and something happens… Brilliant, right?" The man turns away. "But I won't let them push me here or there to get chopped up and spat out from that bonfire all wizened and grape skinned as the likes of you. I value my humanity and those so-called legends smell of ashes to me. They feel like one of those tricks the gods like to play on us. A path for the righteous made for fools. Don't you see that?" They stare at each other but the mans' eyes move up toward a high aqueduct connecting two cliff faces and then he looks to the ground. "No … you wouldn't." For a time they both stare into the distance and then

"Do you think me a coward then? Well I can tell you I'm not. I've seen more things and slayed more filth than you know. I've been down to the dark ruin of New Londo. I've seen the ghosts of that hell. And the demons who haunt the undead lands … I'm done with them. There's no one left to save. Do you know what they're doing? The mortals? The gods? They scheme and twist and kill each other like murderous dogs. Well I'm done. I don't want to hear it or see it. Can I ask you: Do you enjoy the dying? I do not I've done enough. Do you want to quicken to the hollowing? It's hell you know. It's hell being hollowed. You see them. Do you think they are comfortable? It's a hell they're in. I'm not going there. Salvation? You'll find none but who needs it anyway? I … will stay here, as human as foul treachery can offer one, until … do you know how many undead I've seen come and go and go hollow? Many my friend … many."

The warrior stares.

"Your undead face has made me weary. Go. Now, why don't you go look around. There's much to see here in Firelink Shrine. Stay away from the graveyard if you don't feel like being chopped up." He looks away as though exhausted and irritated. "There are some other souls lingering around here. They come and go and come again. The bonfire here is kept well as you can see … Go on and introduce yourself," he says with a smirk. Then "the firekeeper is even less sociable then yourself but, yes, there are others to talk to … he he… just be careful. There's treachery. So much. Me? I'm staying here I said. The bonfire will sustain my humanity and I can rest in peace. Now let me rest."

"Treachery?" wonders the warrior outloud.

"The man looks back at him as if realizing he may have said too much … "let me rest." And turns away. The warrior wonders about the mans' lost will. His misery seeming to be reaching so far into the abyss that he no longer wants ... anything. Yes, he might well be hollow. There's little difference between that and the true death he knows.


End file.
